EXCLUSIVE: Trump Slashes Bureaucratic Backlog Keeping Veterans From Their Benefits

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to accelerate benefits and employment opportunities for veterans, the Daily Caller learned first.

The executive order will modernize data management and data sharing between the Departments of War and Veterans Affairs to help expedite veterans’ access to benefits, a White House official told the the Caller. Under the order, the DOW and VA will deploy new tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help with the process.

The DOW, VA, and Department of Labor (DOL) are also ordered to ensure they give veterans better career guidance, job opportunities, and training opportunities under the executive order. Upon leaving active duty service, the executive order requires the federal government to connect service members with a veterans specialist from federal, state, or local governments who can help facilitate their benefit applications.

A White House official told the Daily Caller that — due to outdated systems — it can take an average of 90 to 180 days to transfer transitioning service members’ profiles, delaying their move to civilian life. This delay impacts their healthcare coverage, benefits processing, educational opportunities, and job training and placement.

The Trump administration inherited a backlog of more than 70,000 transitioning service members from the Biden administration, a White House official told the Caller. At one point during the Biden administration, the VA’s backlog grew to around 378,000.

“A lot of our problem is we’re too paperwork-heavy on the initial end, which tends to get people wary of the system,” VA Secretary Doug Collins told the Daily Caller News Foundation in Jun 2025 about the backlog. “So they think it’s harder than it really is. And I think that complicates this as we go through. So I’m just looking at it from a total perspective, say, how can we make it easier for somebody to file for a claim, go through the process and not think they have to either call an attorney or call somebody else?”

Fraud amongst veterans’ benefits still remains a problem. In 2024, military retirees and veterans lost $419 million to fraud across all instances.

“That’s a problem that we’re trying to address within the system itself, to make sure that those are for valid folks who have valid needs that they are able to have that,” Collins told the DCNF at the time.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent

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